Sunday, December 15, 2013

Kling Challenges Fukuyama on Well Governed Societies

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from the article

My challenge for Fukuyama is to name a government with a large, diverse population that in his view works really well. The countries with populations larger than the U.S. are China and India, and I do not wish to trade governance with either country. In fact, of the top 10 most populous countries, the only one with a government that is not atrociously worse than ours is Japan. And they are the least diverse. Germany, with 1/4 of our population, is decently governed. So is the UK, with 1/5 of our population, and Canada, with 1/9 of our population.

When you think of a country with an effective central government, what comes to mind? I come up with Singapore, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, and such, all with populations under 10 million. And Switzerland delegates a lot of political power to cantons and towns. What this says to me is that the most promising way to reform government in the U.S. is in the direction of Federalism, rather than betting on making the central government work better

Source: Arnold Kling, "A Challenge for Francis Fukuyama," askblog, December 15, 2013

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